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GOP battle – We have a battle brewing not just for control of the Kansas GOP but for the direction of the state. Those who proclaim themselves conservatives generally line up behind Gov. Sam Brownback, who has a vision and an ambition to remake Kansas into a model for low taxes and less government. While that may play well with some, maybe even many, Kansans, the trade-off is mediocre schools, roads and other services that Kansas traditionally has made a priority.
Hutchinson News
Primary – Not that any elections are unimportant, but Tuesday’s primary contest has the potential to determine Kansas’ future as a functional democracy. Unless Kansas voters stand up, there will be no effective representative government in place. What residents of this great state want simply will not matter. If the governor has his way, public discourse and rational debate will have no place in Topeka. There won’t be any checks and balances left. This election is the last opportunity Kansas voters have to at least keep a hand brake on the Brownback steamroller.
Hays Daily News
Tax cuts – Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback called a news conference to announce that worries over his upcoming draconian tax cuts are greatly exaggerated and the state’s finances are in fine shape. Brownback’s boastings were timed to boost the chances of supporters running for legislative seats in Tuesday’s primary. But his deceptively rosy forecast makes a better case for candidates who are willing to stand up to the governor and his misguided agenda.
Kansas City Star
Candidates for the House and Senate are telling voters they will find a way to live with Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax cuts. Most of them also mention that property taxes should be reduced. This is what we used to call double-talk. If the revenue shortfall is anything like what the pessimists predict, it will be property taxes that are called on to save our public schools and local government services. But we all know the unpopularity of the property tax. This makes raising property taxes significantly almost politically impossible. So, unless the governor is right – or at least more right than wrong – Kansas and especially its rural communities are in for many more years of belt-tightening. Our belts are already pinching pretty hard.
Winfield Daily Courier
Chick-fil-A – The people who decided to call for a boycott of Chick-fil-A because the company’s president said it supported the biblical definition of the family and the traditional definition of marriage need a remedial course in public relations. If the crowd at the Topeka Chick-fil-A restaurant on Wednesday was any indication, and we think it was, Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy is winning the public opinion battle and the boycott idea will be a huge failure.
Topeka Capital-Journal
KU fund – A recent mailing from the University of Kansas athletic department should get the attention of loyal Jayhawk fans. According to the solicitation, KU is near the bottom of the Big 12 Conference in the number of individual donors to its private fundraising organization, the Williams Educational Fund. Is this because of the negative bullying tactics of former KU athletic director Lew Perkins, the miserable showing of the KU football team the past two years, poor efforts to sell the Williams program and recruit new donors, a lessening of interest in the KU sports programs, a lack of support from the chancellor’s office, or something else?
Lawrence Journal-World
